Mumbai News: 5 Govt Officials Sentenced To One Month In Prison For Contempt Of Court

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday has sentenced five government officials, including principal secretary of the Urban Development Department (UDD) Aseem Gupta, to one month in prison for contempt of court.

The division bench, consisting of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Jitendra Jain, found the officials guilty of repeatedly failing to comply with court orders. The convicted officials, Aseem Gupta, additional commissioner Vijaysingh Deshmukh, district rehabilitation officer Uttam Patil, talathi Sachin Kale, and sub-divisional officer Santosh Deshmukh, were sentenced to onemonth of simple imprisonment. However, at the request of senior counsel Milind Sathe, the court granted a one-week stay on the sentence and directed the officials to file their affidavits by the next hearing.

Chaskman and Bhama-Aaskhed irrigation project

The court was hearing a contempt petition filed by Ajay Narhe and other agriculturists whose lands were acquired for the Chaskman and Bhama-Aaskhed irrigation project in Pune back in 1971. The government had issued a notification under Section 11 of the Resettlement Act for the acquisition of the lands for the irrigation project. This imposed several restrictions on the landowners, under Section 12 of the Act, including prohibition of non-agricultural use and sale of the land. Advocate Nitin Deshpande, who appeared for the agriculturists, stated that the government failed to acquire the lands despite the notification, leaving the agriculturists bound by these restrictions and unable to sell their lands.

Subsequently, several individual agriculturists approached the HC, which ordered the release of their lands from the acquisition process. The then Secretary of Relief and Rehabilitation, Gupta, was called upon considering the large number of petitions filed. By consent, an order was passed on March 2, 2022, asking the state government to decide within six months whether to acquire the lands for the irrigation projects or release the lands, thereby removing the imposed restrictions. However, no decision was taken by the government even though the order was passed over a year ago. Consequently, Narhe and other agriculturists filed a contempt petition through advocate Nitin Deshpande. Despite court orders, the government failed to file a reply to the contemptplea and ignored the show cause notice issued by the HC. Even the secretary of the rehabilitation department failed to appear before the court despite being summoned, leading the court to finally sentence the Additional Collector, Pune and Deputy Collector (Rehabilitation) to simple imprisonment of one month on the charges of contempt of court.